They
drive speedily on Italian roads. It's not that they're in more of a hurry than the
rest of the world, it's probably that they're simply "late."

The same goes for the world of Italian wines. When wine has been made in an area for
a few thousand years, the drive to improve its quality has come only in the past ten or
fifteen years. While many wines were simply not of "international
quality," Italy is now hell-bent on making its mark in the world of wine and is doing
so with the same speed exhibited on its autostradas.

Winery after winery is (or has) installing stainless steel, temperature-controlled
fermentation tanks. New oak barrels are everywhere (this is both good and bad).
More importantly, Italian winemakers are traveling around the world and tasting the
wines of their competition. (The best wines in the world are often made by
winemakers who are well-versed in the wines from far-away lands.)

I have been fortunate enough to have traveled in Italy for nearly 20 years
and have witnessed the dramatic changes with my own eyes (and palate). I speak the
language (now) and am always curious to see what new discoveries are to be made with each
visit.

How To Interpret Italian Wine
Labels

Good luck!
Here's why there's so much confusion:

1. The winery name often is not prominently displayed on the label! Sometimes it appears in very small print at the bottom of the label and sometimes it's
even abbreviated to a bunch of unintelligible letters.

2. How
can you decipher if the name of the wine is a grape or a place?Not without doing a bunch of homework! Some wines are labeled with the grape
name being the most prominent on the label and other wines take the name of the place
where the fruit was grown as the wine "type."

3. What's up "DOC"?The initials "DOC" indicate the wine is made according to certain rules
which regulate the type of grape(s), the area of production, the maximum amount of tonnage
in the vineyard, the minimum alcohol content, the aging of the wine in wood (if
applicable) as well as in bottle.

4. What's "DOCG"?The "G" stands for "garantita," like there's a guarantee of
quality. The only "guarantee" is that the wine is supposed to come from
where it's supposed to come from and we're, frankly, not putting much faith in that,
either.

5. What's "IGT"? This designation is the equivalent of a French "Vin de Pays" and
signifies "Indicazione geografica tipica."It is supposed to
provide the consumer with more information on a wine label rather than having, simply,
"vino da tavola" and no other info.

6. Why are "Vino da Tavola" sometimes cheap and sometimes
expensive?Many wineries make wines outside the DOC rules and regulations. These wines
allow the winemaker to run wild and unimpeded by the local traditions. As a result,
some of Italy's best wines have not had any sort of "appellation" or
"denominazione," so wines such as "Sassicaia" had been relegated to
simple "vino da tavola" status, much like the plonk you might find in a bulk
demijohn in the local trattoria being served in something barely more classy than a
dixie-cup.

7. Why the confusion?Because it's Italy! There are something like 3,200 different wine types
being made in Italy. Sorting through these is like looking for a particular strand
of spaghetti in a huge, family-sized bowl!

Other Thoughts:

Many Italian winemakers now speak about
"international-style" for their wines. This is usually translates to
"oak."

Winemakers often attempt to curry favor with wine
writers. They'll read some reviews, see what scores highly and alter their
winemaking in an effort to get close to the 100-point rating. Hence,
you have Tuscan vintners (and many others) adding Montepulciano wine from
Abruzzo or some dark red from Puglia to "beef up" their red wines.
It's all about the score and rating.

Winemakers seem to be less sensitive to tannin than wine drinkers. In
the past decade, or so, winemakers seem to have gotten a handle on
tannin.

We used to find many
wines of Italy to be extremely tannic. What's the point in having an astringent,
tannic, yet fruity red wine? For example, we view Dolcetto as something to drink
when it's young. Yet many producers make a wine which has the same fierce tannins as
Nebbiolo-based reds. This seems foolish to us.

One feature of many Italian wines is they really taste better with food. This
may be, partly, a function of the tannins present in so many Italian wines (red ones,
anyway).